Go Into The Water
by cynic.in.a.fishbowl
Summary: While Katniss was off assassinating heads of government, I was off working through my issues in Thirteen. By the time I made it to the Capitol, it was an entirely different ball-game to the one I was used to.
1. Chapter 1

**So as you're no doubt aware, considering the fact that you actually had to opt into seeing the M rated fics, this fic is rated M. There will be some unpleasantness, the bulk of it to do with waterboarding and various other modes of torture. **

**If you don't want to read that, then I totally understand, but now is the time to go elsewhere.**

**Also, the title of this fic comes from a Dethklok song of the same name. There's actually the odd Dethklok reference in here. Call it irony.**

* * *

I sit with Annie in silence. It's a companionable silence – neither of us feels the need to talk, and neither of us is particularly enamoured of inane conversation. I like Annie. People think she's mad, and she is, but so is every Victor to some extent. We all have our ways of dealing with what went on in the Arena, and for Annie, that involves seeming a lot less sane than she actually is.

She has her bad moments, but so do I. And neither of us has as many bad moments as Peeta, the poor kid. Her veneer of insanity is a defence for her, just like when I had pretended to be weak and terrified my first time in the Arena. People never notice the person who isn't a threat. Annie, as it happens, is the fastest person I've ever seen with a blade in her hand. That was how she won her Games. She's fast, she's silent and her aim is excellent.

After she'd won she was initially a lot worse than she is now. Finnick had done an excellent job bringing her back to reality, but he'd seen that the easiest way to keep her out of Snow's line of sight was to get her to pretend to be insane. And it worked.

Even on the days when she isn't at her best, it's comforting to be near her. It's almost like back in Seven before I was Reaped. My older sister Peggy had been in love with a boy who was Reaped the year before I was. He didn't make it back. She watched as he was beaten to a pulp by some Neanderthal from One. She was never the same girl after that. She hadn't been all there to begin with, but Mitchell's death pushed her over the edge. Three months later, she 'had a climbing accident'. I knew it wasn't an accident because she was afraid of heights. Sad, insane Annie reminds me of the time before Peggy killed herself. And it's nice, in a perversely morbid way.

But then after my Games, pretty much everything has some kind of trigger to remind me of my time in the Arena, so everything tends to be perversely morbid.

"'Anna." Says Annie, not moving, but probing to see if I'm in the mood to talk. Today is a good day for her, and she's excellent conversation when she's in the present. Annie started calling me Anna pretty much immediately. She had a friend who was Reaped who was named Anna, and apparently we had the same love of climbing things.

"I'm here." I reply, because sometimes on the bad days, Annie just likes to know that someone's there. It used to be Finnick, and now it tends to be me. Luckily the bad days are fewer now, and far between.

"How's your arm?" she doesn't care how my arm is. It's a way of asking each other, obliquely, if we're doing alright. Since our arms were where they had put the trackers for when we were in the Arena, it seemed as good a body part as any to bring up.

"It's doing alright today." I reply, and somewhat truthfully, which is nice. There are some things I still have trouble with, but my time in the Arena doesn't haunt me all that much any more. It's been replaced with what happened afterwards, but I'm working through it. "How's yours?" I ask, slightly on edge in case today turns into a bad day.

"It's not too bad. Painful, but it always hurts. Just like I know yours is hurting today, and every day, but you're too busy looking after me and everyone else to notice. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate it. You went through it twice, and you're still too busy making sure everyone else is alright to even take a moment to reflect on yourself."

"Bullshit." I respond. "You know just as well as I do that if I'm busy with other people, I don't need to deal with my own problems. It's a coping mechanism and we both know it."

This is part of what I like about being with Annie. We can talk at length about our deep-seated issues as if they're someone else's. We don't judge.

Annie smiles and leans her head on my shoulder. We're practically the same age. I'm nineteen, she's twenty-one. That's part of why we became friends. That and when a fire alarm was tripped and the sprinklers came on and I panicked, she found me huddled in a corner, sodden and screaming. I don't remember anything after the water started falling, only waking up in her quarters with her handing me a cup of tea and telling me I'm heavier than I look. And that I have an impressive set of lungs on me.

I hadn't really formulated an opinion of her until then, but the fact that she managed to drag me up two flights of stairs and through an impressive system of corridors whilst eight months pregnant earned her more respect than I held for anyone. Because when she needs to be, she's tough as nails.

I lean my head on her shoulder and close my eyes. Little Finnick is asleep on Annie's lap, and it's a lovely day in the Capitol.

It won't last though. Annie is planning to go back to Four, and as much as I don't want to stay where I am, I haven't been deemed fit enough to go about on my own. Even if I was, I wouldn't know where to go. I can't go back to Seven. Everyone I knew there is dead.

After a time, we're roused by a nervous looking girl of about 14. "You're wanted in command." She stammers, waiting to see what we'll do. I remember that after the executions of the high-and-mighty of the Capitol were done, there was a profusion of orphans. These orphans had, of course, been significantly fewer than there would have been had they not been bombed just before Snow's mansion had been taken, and the fact that almost everyone they knew had died had been taken into account. They had no skills whatsoever apart from administration and paper-shuffling, and so they were all being trained to be the civil service of the new republic. The cleverer ones were recruited as runners, and as a result were able to sit in on some of the command meetings. Apparently, this one was clever.

I stretch and groan. "Do you know what this is about?" I ask, standing up and stretching again.

"No, ma'am." She answers, seemingly petrified.

I glance at Annie and we both shrug. "What's your name?" I ask. I've made it a habit to find out a little about the children who were raised so differently from those of us who were born in the districts. It helps to remind me that they weren't behind all the things that happened to us. They were innocent to some extent.

"Minerva, miss Mason." She answers.

"Call me Johanna." I tell her. She seems a nice enough girl.

Annie stands up, with little Finnick strapped to her back in a carrier. He's asleep on her shoulder, and it's adorable. Minerva sees what I see and looks a little less terrified. We start walking through the gardens of the presidential mansion towards the Justice building where all of the governing takes place.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" I ask. This question works whatever the answer. If they're all dead, I let them know that mine are too. If they aren't, they start talking about their families, and they calm down a little.

"I have an older sister, Diana." She answers. "She's training to be a doctor."

"You don't want to be a doctor?" I ask. She's less scared now that she's talking.

"I did." She says. "When we were all penned up in the gardens here, I was patching the kids up as many kids as I could, keeping the toddlers warm… they all died anyway. That's when I stopped wanting to be a doctor." She says matter-of-factly.

After Katniss killed Coin, the plan for a final Hunger Games was put on hold. After all, Coin, the driving force behind them, was dead; Katniss was more or less banned from ever going anywhere near the Capitol again, so her vote was all but discounted; Haymitch was no longer lucid thanks to his rediscovery of alcohol; I had actually started to get to know the children of the Capitol, and I saw that they were basically the same as the rest of us had been. Powerless.

More importantly, when Coin had called together all of the surviving Victors, she had neglected to enlist the opinion of Lyme, the two metre tall giant from Two. So the vote was declared void. And nobody really wanted to initiate another. The populace were over all the bloodshed.

"Do you have any idea what you'd like to do now?" I ask her.

She shrugs, and we climb the steps of the Justice building. The guards wave us through, and we follow Minerva through a maze of corridors to a room. Annie pauses a moment. She's not sure whether she should bring in little Finnick. "I can take him." Says Minerva. "I'm good with babies."

"Thankyou." Says Annie, who unstraps him and hands him to Minerva, who has sat herself on the floor outside, leaning against a wall.

We go inside, and sit ourselves at a table across from Paylor, the new president. She jumps right into it. "Annie, it is my job to inform you that you have been elected district leader of Four. You were planning to head back eventually, so we've just moved that forward. Two days from now, you'll be going home. Sorry for the short notice."

I glance over at Annie. She looks stunned. I squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back. She's got a familiar glint of determination in her eye. She'll do fine. I look back up at Paylor. "You said you needed both of us?" I point out.

"I did." She admits. "Gale Hawthorne, whom I'm sure you'll remember, is currently in Two being trained for command. He however can't run the country on his own, and so we're looking for other similarly skilled individuals."

Well that's a surprise. "So you chose me?" I ask. After all, I'm not the pinnacle of mental stability at the moment.

Her answer surprises me. "I didn't. He did. He specifically suggested you. The phrase 'untamed wildcat' was mentioned, along with a lot of miming of axes. You can refuse the spot if you wish, but I think we all know just how little you like it here."

It's better than I could have hoped. Two has forests. Not as much as Seven, but there are still trees. I grin widely. "When do I start?" is the only question which remains to be asked.

"You'll be leaving two days from now, just like Annie. Packs have been left in your quarters with the things you will need. I'll see you again when you leave for a final debrief." And with that, the meeting is over. We stand and walk to the door. Annie takes little Finn from Minerva, thanking her, and we walk back towards our rooms.

"So…" I say, giving Annie a nudge. "District leader. Look at you, rising up in the world all speedily."

Annie just looks at me with her eyebrows raised. "And look at you, little miss 'I just got myself a cushy job with whatever black ops is being run in Two, specifically requested by Commander Tall, Dark and Handsome'." I open my mouth to protest, but Annie stares me down. "Don't think I didn't notice you looking, little missy. You wouldn't mind carving yourself a slice of coal miner."

I stare at Annie, shocked. Not that she had noticed the odd lingering glance, she's perceptive after all, but that she's capable of such euphemism. She seemed so sweet and kind. My respect for her increases significantly. I just flick my hair and regard her coolly. "That you would think such things of me is an affront. You know that I am as innocent as a newborn…" but I can't continue as I've dissolved into giggles and so has Annie.

By the time we finally calm ourselves down, we're back at our rooms. As promised, there are packs on our beds. Annie leaves Finn with Cassandra, the baby nurse assigned to help her raise him, who informs her that Mrs Everdeen will be accompanying her to Four to oversee the construction of the new hospital there. We sit cross-legged on my bed. We sit in silence, looking everywhere but at each other for a while, before we say at the same time "We should tell Peeta."

We tend to visit him every day, although he tends to spend most of his time with the head doctors. When he isn't with them he tends to just be sad because he misses Katniss. I feel guilty for abandoning him when he feels so alone, but surely he'll be deemed sane enough to return home at some point soon.

I knock on his door, and Annie and I walk in without waiting for a reply.

Of course no reply was going to come, because the room is empty. On the bed there is a note. 'I'm in the kitchens.' We shrug and off we go. We find him kneading a mound of dough, surrounded by more baked goods than I think I've ever seen in my life.

"Congratlations." He says.

"How did you know?" asks Annie.

Peeta shrugs. "They told me about a week ago. Wanted to give me time to get used to it before you guys left."

I pick up a bit of dough near me and throw it at him. "You knew for a week and you didn't TELL us?" I demand as he picks it out of his hair.

"I wasn't allowed to tell you." He replies, sounding a little lost.

"After all we've been through together, Blondie," I say, vaulting over the benchtop to give him a hug, "you couldn't even give me a hint?"

"It wasn't finalised yet. I didn't want to give you false hope that you'd be out of here."

This boy is quite possibly the best person I have ever met.

I walk back around to sit next to Annie. "It's not permanent." I respond. "The whole idea is we're being trained up to run this mess of a nation. So eventually I'll be back here permanently…" I pause for a moment. "Or I'll be insane. Let's be honest, it could go either way."

Both Annie and Peeta regard me reproachfully. "You know that's not going to happen." Says Annie firmly. "If for no other reason than the fact that far too many of your friends, both alive and dead, would judge you harshly for it. And I would be at the forefront of their ire." As she says this, she's casually twirling a knife she's picked up somewhere, with the same glint in her eye that won her the Hunger Games.

We've been keeping each other sane in the Capitol, and I have a feeling that separation isn't going to change that.


	2. Chapter 2

Annie and I say our goodbyes to Peeta early in the morning. We're all in the kitchen of the presidential palace, where Peeta has been allowed to go and bake. Apparently it's part of his therapy. Doing normal things. So we're all sitting on the floor against a tiled wall, eating some crusty bread that he's made and working out how we're going to stay in touch with each other.

He rides with us to the station to say goodbye, and I realise just how much I'm going to miss him. He's the only person who knows what I went through, and he's the only one who really gets just how damaged it's made me. "If it ever gets bad, call me." He says as we hold hands, waving to Annie as her train pulls away. We're both shaking.

"Likewise, Blondie." I reply. "Hell. Even if it doesn't. A couple of crazies like us ought to stick together."

He grins. "Let's just take a moment to appreciate the fact that one of the most screwed up people I know is off to be trained to run the nation."

"We're doomed." I remark as my train pulls up.

"No we're not." He replies. "You just need to find something to distract yourself with. Or someone. Who specifically asked for you to be transferred over." He waggles his eyebrows in one of the most spectacular displays of normalcy I've seen from him since our incarceration.

I use the hand that I'm still holding to slap him on the back of the head. "I expected better from you." I reprimand.

"No you didn't." He responds, squeezing my hand. "You know that deep down I'm just a sleazy old lecher."

I hug him tightly, squeezing my eyes shut to stop the tears which are beginning to threaten from falling. "I'm not ready for this." I whisper.

"Yes you are. You're Johanna Mason. You won the Hunger Games. Single-handedly, might I add, which is more than I can claim for myself. You're going to get on that train, and in a couple of years you're going to be running the country, and telling me stories of all the times you rebuffed the advances of Tall, Dark and Grumpy. I never liked that boy overly much, and him turning his sights to you makes me like him even less."

His overwhelming niceness just makes me burst into tears.

"I'm going to miss you." I say into his chest.

"Likewise. I'll see if I can visit at some point. And we'll write. And talk. But right now, you've got a train to catch, and I'm starting to feel a bit teary, and I'd much rather you remember me as all stoic and manly."

That just makes me snort. I give him one last squeeze, which he reciprocates, and then we let go of each other. I walk onto the train, which has already been loaded with the things I need, and stand next to the window, smiling at Peeta, who's smiling back. Just as the train begins to pull away, he holds up a piece of paper. On it, he's written 'look under the seat'.

I wave at him until I can't see him any more, and then look under all seven seats which are in the compartment until I find the one he meant. There's another note, along with what can only be a wrapped canvas. I open the note. He's written 'Here's a little something to remind you of home. '

I unwrap the canvas. I recognise what he's painted immediately. He's painted the forests of Seven. He must have done it while he was on the victory tour. Tears spring to my eyes once again, and I busy myself with rewrapping the painting. That boy is without a doubt the best man who ever lived. And then I notice what he's written on the back of the painting: 'Being naked is better than being a tree.' Bless that boy.

I explore the train cabin, find that there's nothing of interest, and decide to actually work on my skill. I'd always liked drawing, despite being pretty terrible at it, and then in the capitol during my victory tour I had seen some old manuscripts hanging on a wall. They were almost entirely words, with a few decorations along the edges, but the way they'd been written was absolutely beautiful. That's when I started calligraphy.

And I am well out of practice. My first ten alphabets are sloppy, and covered in crossings out. The next ten are getting better, although some of the angles are still a touch off. Not too terrible though. As I shake out my wrist (all that training in Thirteen had brought back a lot of my muscle, but my fine motor endurance had gotten atrocious), I happen to glance out the window. And see a block of dense black cloud fast approaching. The thing is, it doesn't even unnerve me. Clouds I can deal with. The imminent threat of rain I can deal with. It's only when it starts that things get bad.

I shrug and go back to writing. The nib of one of my pens gets blocked, and as I'm cleaning it out, the deluge begins.

Back in Seven when I grew up, it was pretty damp. Mainly fogs and mists, with a semi-constant drizzle. I liked it. Especially the rare occasions when the heavens really opened up and it _rained._ And then the waterboarding happened. And water became inexplicably terrifying.

I find myself beginning to hyperventilate – because let's be honest, when you're about to be waterboarded, a little extra oxygen never did anyone harm. Nor did passing out to be honest. I look around the cabin, panicked, until I spot the phone mounted on the wall in the corner. Unsteadily, I walk towards it, pick it up and sat against the wall, knees up to my chest.

"Security code?" asks a bored looking voice on the other end once the dial tone goes on for a while.

I don't know any codes. So I try the fame card. "This is Johanna Mason. I'd like to be connected to Peeta Mellark." I say in a voice which is remarkably unshaky for how I feel at the time.

It sounds like the person on the other end jumps a little. "Of course Miss Mason. Right away." There's a beep and the line begins to ring again.

He picks up almost immediately. "Joey? Are you alright?"

"It's raining." I gasp out, as I try to get my breathing under control.

"You're hyperventilating." He remarks, concerned.

"I'm aware of that." I respond. It's important to talk when I'm like this, because it helps to slow down my breathing.

"Did you find it?" he asks, no doubt referring to the painting.

"Of course. Thank you. It's just like home."

"That was the idea." He says.

"What's the weather like in Two?" I ask out of the blue.

I hear him typing something. He's checking. Then he groans.

"What?" I ask. At least I've almost stopped hyperventilating.

"It's pretty dry most of the year…" he begins.

"Except…?" I prompt, guessing where this is going.

"Except for in the spring." He continues, "when it rains more or less constantly."

Typical. Just typical. I'm too busy laughing to panic, because really this is good. Either I'll get over this fear of water or I'll finally go off the deep end and spend the rest of my days in a sedated land of warm fuzziness. At least until Annie exacts her vengeance for disappointing her. Either way there'll be some finality to the situation.

"Joey, are you alright?" he asks, sounding a bit worried.

"I've been better." I admit. "But at least this way I'll start getting acclimatised."

And then we're both laughing, because there isn't anything else we can do.

After a time he asks "Should I stay on the phone with you until you get there?"

"Yes." I respond immediately.

"It's at least another half hour until you get there." He says. "Probably longer when you consider the weather. You'd better start singing."

When we'd been incarcerated together, I'd spent almost every waking minute singing. Even during the first few weeks of interrogations, when they'd been using conventional methods, mainly blades, I just kept singing. Partly because it helped me to dissociate from my surroundings (or at least that's what the shrink had told me), and also partly because I enjoyed seeing the interrogators squirm at the fact that they weren't affecting me much at all. And then when they were working on Peeta, I sang in order to distract myself. And when we were both left alone, I sang because it helped to keep us clinging onto reality. Peeta taught me all the songs he knew from Twelve, and I taught him all of the songs I knew – the traditional ones from Seven, logging songs and the bawdy sea shanties Finnick had taught me years ago. He wasn't half bad himself, although he was pretty damn shy when it came to singing. And he knew that it was a good way to pass the time while keeping me calm. Enough.

"Any requests, Blondie?" I ask, already knowing what he's going to say.

"Go into the water." He says.

That was one of the first songs I'd taught him in prison, a logging song. When they started waterboarding me, he'd sing it to me once they were gone, and I was lying on the floor of my cell, coughing up a lung and shivering. Despite the content, or maybe because of it, it actually helped.

I take a deep breath and start singing, nodding my head in time with when I would swing an axe.

Forty minutes of singing later, my throat is dry as a bone, and the train is pulling into the station in Two. If it's possible, the rain has gotten heavier. "I'm here, Blondie. Thanks for keeping me here."

"For all the energy you expended keeping me sane, Joey, I will never stop owing you."

"Yeah, but it didn't work, did it?" I point out.

"You acclimatised me so well to the Valley Song that when Katniss sang it at Prim's funeral I didn't even have a jacking incident. For that, I will never stop being grateful." I used to sing it to him after every single one of his sessions. It took me about two to figure out what they were doing, and another one and a half to figure out that he was doing all he could to fight it, so for hours both during and after, I'd sing it to him. It was all I could do.

"Take care, Blondie." I say.

"You too, Lake Troll." Another one of the logging songs. He had thought the nickname suited me. I was inclined to agree.

We hang up the phones, and I stand up and head to the window. My welcoming party is here. I take a deep breath, straighten up my posture ('Shoulders back, chest up, spine like a cedar.' mama used to say. 'You ain't been blessed with much in the tits department, but damned if you're not going to work with what you've got.') and smiling at the memory of my blunt as a rock mother, I take a deep breath and see who they've sent to collect me.

I'm impressed. They've sent the man himself, and damn if he doesn't look fine.

He has an umbrella, and he walks to the entrance of the carriage, which means I don't have any rain falling on me on the way to the car. My feet get wet, but that's not enough to bring back the panic. Once we're in the car, he turns to me and says "Welcome to Two. This afternoon you've got nothing scheduled. Feel free to get settled in. Starting tomorrow, we're training a new crop of Peacekeepers. We're doing that for a month while we learn military command from Lyme. After that, they'll be done excavating the old Peacekeeper headquarters, and then we'll spend another month learning how to use the computers. Then we're off to Three."

"And so on through the districts picking up various skills until we're sent back to the Capitol for a lifetime spent running things?" I ask, anticipating where this is going.

"That's the plan." Gale says somewhat grimly. He turns to face me. "It's a tough commitment to make, and if you want to opt out, that's totally understandable."

I bat my eyelashes at him. "Handsome, I couldn't even if I wanted to. We're all they've got left, and damned if I'm going to let the country go back to where it was."

He smiles sadly. "That, dollface, was pretty much my attitude. When I overheard the higher-ups wondering who else they ought to be training up, I suggested you. I figured you've been through hell and need something to distract yourself with."

Well that's interesting. He clearly feels mighty guilty for something. More pressingly, being in an enclosed space with rain pouring down around me is starting to freak me out. So I keep the conversation going. "Where have they put us?" I ask.

"We'll be sharing a house in the Victor's Village." He answers.

"Seriously?" I ask, slightly horrified. It seems wrong, living in the house of someone who had no doubt died in the revolution.

"It was that or the Justice Building. Everything else was destroyed and the only homes which have been rebuilt are already taken. It was Lyme's house before she started running the district. She's now in town for convenience, and we have her old house."

"Convenience?" I ask, somehow sensing that 'convenience' wasn't the real point of it.

"And to quote her," he elucidates, "it's hot in summer, cold in winter, windy in autumn and leaky in spring. She's thrilled to be out of there."

I can't help but grin. I feel I could like this woman.

He leads me up a flight of stairs (the floor plan is eerily similar to that of my own house back in Seven. Although mine has wood panelling on the outside as opposed to masonry. Fitting I suppose considering the main industries of the districts.) to the room which is to be mine. There's a bed, a desk and a closet. Not much else, but there's not much else I need. He's in the room next to mine. We're sharing a bathroom, but considering the fact that I don't shower these days, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

There's nothing for me to do for the couple of hours it takes for the security teams to check everything and make sure that nobody's trying to kill us (a few assassination attempts aimed at various high-ranking figures and suddenly everyone's paranoid), so I lie down on the floor and try to control my breathing as I listen to the rain.

I've been there for four hundred and twenty-six breaths when the world collapses and I'm back in the prison.


	3. Chapter 3

_I'm sitting in a chair with my hands tied behind my back and my feet tied to the legs of the chair. I'm breathing as quickly as I can, because I know I'm not going to have that luxury for much longer. I can hear Peeta reminding me that they're not going to kill me. As long as I have information they want, they're not going to kill me. The torturers walk in, and as usual there's three of them._

_One of them has never touched me. He just asks the questions. Another just holds me in place. The third is the one who tries to make me talk._

_They've brought the gag and the funnel. I was right to be hyperventilating._

_The second one walks behind me and pinches my nose shut, yanking my head back at the same time. Playing my part, I start holding my breath._

_I always had excellent breath control (a youth spent singing whilst felling trees tends to do that) and I can see them being irritated by just how long I can go without opening my mouth for oxygen. It's a small victory. I've figured out that if I'm as low on oxygen as possible when they start pouring, I get to the point of near drowning faster, which means they stop sooner._

_Finally, I have to breathe, and thinking of home I open my mouth to pull in some much needed oxygen, and as usual, they're ready. There's a gag depressing my tongue and stopping my ability to keep water out of my airways and more water than I could possibly swallow away. _

_The first batch of water hits my lungs, and my diaphragm wants nothing more than to start pumping for all its worth. My brain knows better, and so I start methodically trying to pump the water out of my lungs. It doesn't work, because in order to cough something out, there needs to be air to propel it, but doing it this way means I'm concentrating too hard to panic. Much. The time for panic is before they start drowning me. Then it's the time to stay alive._

_After what feels like a lifetime, but according to Peeta is only about thirty seconds, they stop and untie me, allowing me to collapse to the floor and finally cough out all the water. Before I've even done that much, however, they're dragging me back onto the chair for a second run. The second time is always worse, because I'm already exhausted and there's still water in my lungs which I'm trying to get rid of. That doesn't stop them. My nose is blocked off and my entire body is spasming because it wants to cough, but I'm not about to waste precious oxygen on that._

_It's only after the second one that they start asking the questions. After I say nothing for a while, there's the third round, followed by more questions, round four, a last attempt to get something out of me, and then the farewell round. _

_Only this time they don't seem to be bothering with questions. They're trying to kill me and they're going to do it as slowly as they can. Before I even have time to panic, there's more water._

"Johanna!" I snap back to reality. Or at least it might be reality. I don't know. I'm gasping for air and I'm soaked, so I don't know what is going on. I can't move, which is disorienting me further, and then I see why. Gale has my arms and legs pinned to the floor as he leans over me trying to bring me back to the present. "Do you recognise me?" he asks. I nod, coughing, and he pulls me up and away from the wreckage that was my room.

I can see that the roof caved in, which was probably what triggered the flashback. Gale is saying something. He's asking what he should do.

"Call Peeta." I gasp.

He leads me to a telephone and I sit against the wall while he dials. "Peeta, this is Gale. Johanna told me to call you… I don't know. The roof collapsed, and she just lost it… it's raining." A look of horrified understanding dawns on his face. "On it. Yep. Here she is." He hands the phone down to me and runs off somewhere.

"Joey, how bad was it?" Peeta asks.

"Bad." I answer.

"I think you gave Tall, Dark and Leadership Suitable quite a shock." He says calmly. "I don't think he was entirely apprised of your situation."

I smile slightly as Gale reappears with a towel and wraps me in it. He's about to leave when I grab him by the wrist and point to the floor next to me. I'm going to need to give him an in depth explanation after this, and until I calm down, his presence is comforting. He was, after all, the person in charge of our rescue party.

"I don't think they fully appraised anyone of my situation." The more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed that people had been told the particulars of my torture. People were too cavalier around water for them to know the full truth.

Peeta chckles. "They were all too busy panicking when I tried to kill Katniss."

My grin widens. "That definitely distracted them."

Peeta goes back to being serious. "Is this worse than the flashback in Thirteen?"

Flooding The Block while I was 'patrolling' had been the first instance anyone had noticed that I had issues with water. Preoccupied as they were with Peeta trying to murder Katniss, they had seen that I was covered with torture wounds and didn't bother asking. And they definitely hadn't bothered asking Peeta. After that incident, I had spent a week in the infirmary recovering.

"No. I think it was just the surprise coupled with the fact that it was raining. Is it this bad for you?"

He thinks for a moment. "I don't know. Are you fully in the present?"

To be honest, I don't think I'll ever be fully clear of that prison, but I'm confident I'm not about to have an episode without provocation. "Yes, I'm aware of my surroundings. I'm in Two, you're in the Capitol, and Gale is sitting next to me feeling mighty awkward about listening in on our conversation. So before I hang up, do you have anything you want to say to him?"

"Just some instructions."

"Be nice." I say to him as I roll my eyes. He's been trying to protect me ever since prison. I hand the phone to Gale.

I listen hard, and I can hear Peeta rattling off a list of things which I can't really deal with at the moment. Restricted movement. Excessive cold. Surprise water. Hearing people screaming. I resolve then and there that if I have kids, the first one gets named after him. After a while, Gale hangs up the phone and I speak. "I owe you an explanation."

Gale disagrees.

I silence him with a look. It's nice to see that my glaring skills are undiminished. "Occasionally, there will be a situation which my brain is unable to handle." I begin. "When that happens, I tend to have flashbacks to my time in prison. You were part of the rescue mission. What can you remember?"

He shrugs. "We didn't know where you were. We had instructions to retrieve Peeta, and if we found you, well then that was great, but if not, then that would be a shame. When we got to Peeta's cell he refused to let us move him until we'd gotten you out first. You were covered with wounds, damp and shivering. You were unconscious. I just found out from Peeta that they waterboarded you."

"Think about it." I pointed out. "They went to a lot of effort jacking him. But even if he'd killed Katniss, the revolution was too far gone to stop. And I was the one who actually knew rebel secrets. He was just a nice boy who fell in love with the wrong girl. They tried very hard to get me to talk. I didn't, but that didn't stop them trying. The reason I wasn't with your team assaulting the Capitol is because when I was being tested on The Block, they flooded it. I was in the infirmary for three days. The only reason I'm going through this whole sordid story with you is because we're going to be working together for a while hence. And you need to know why it is I have issues."

Our little moment of awkwardness is interrupted by a knock on the front door signifying that my belongings have been deemed safe. I stand up, and continue "And there's no way I'm staying upstairs until the ceiling's fixed. I'll sleep on the floor down here."

I get my things and unpack. The picture of Seven I put on top of the fireplace, where I can see it.

When I have all my things where I want them (a task which doesn't take all that long because my clothing is all standard issue, and the only personal effects I had were my calligraphy gear and the bundle of forest Katniss made me back in Thirteen), I notice Gale standing in the hallway waiting for me to finish. I make a face which says 'Quit hovering and just talk.' He's got his bow with him, so he must be off to hunt.

"During your Games, well before to be honest, why did you go through that whole charade of being weak and terrified. You could have more than handled the Arena even with the other Tributes knowing that you weren't a pushover."

He's the third person to ever have the balls to ask me that. The first was Finnick, and the second was Peeta. "When I was reaped, before they stuck me on the train, I got to see my mama. She said to me 'Squirt, y'ain't got much goin' for you. Pretend you're beneath their notice and maybe you'll be able to stay hidden for long enough to get your hands on an axe. You always were good at pretendin'.' Then she told me to fix my posture and left. People from Seven aren't really a sentimental bunch. Either way, you remember my games." Gale nods. "I hadn't had my growth spurt yet, so I was still tiny. I wouldn't have had a hope until I got myself an axe. So I had to stay hidden and not dead long enough to get me one. Even then, it was only a hatchet. But it sufficed. That answer your question, handsome?"

He nods and heads outside. I settle down to do some calligraphy. I've decided to set down all of the songs I knew. Life's just too uncertain to trust those sorts of things to memory. I'm still just writing out alphabets waiting for my hands to stop shaking when the front door reopens. This time it's Gale. In between his leaving and returning, a team had come in to nail a tarp to the ceiling and assess the damage. I kept writing. He deposits whatever it is he caught and comes over to see what I've spread all over the kitchen table and floor.

"When did you learn that?" he asks.

"I taught myself." I answer. "Each Victor is supposed to cultivate some kind of skill once they've won. This happened to be mine. It's just a pity I've gotten out of practice."

"You doing alright?" he asks.

"I'll live." Is the most truthful answer.

He raises his eyebrows and starts dealing with the squirrel. Or at least I think it's a squirrel. He's already skinned and cleaned it, so I can't really be sure.

After a few minutes, I ask the question which has been bugging me for a while. "How did Finnick die?" I ask.

Gale stops what he's doing momentarily, and I glance around to see why. He's got his eyes closed, and it looks like this is a painful question. Bloody Finnick. Trust him to go out in nothing less than a blaze of glory, bloodshed and heroics.

"We were in the sewers, trying to get to the presidential palace. There were… mutts. About seven feet tall, scaled like a lizard. White as if they'd never been out in daylight before. They smelled cloyingly of roses. We were fighting them off, but they just kept on coming. We got to a ladder, and Finnick insisted on sending all of us up ahead of him. He said he could hold them. And he did. They just tore him apart before he was able to follow." He's gauging my reaction.

I just blink and go back to writing. "This is why I should have been part of the mission. Finnick was too noble to be allowed to get into dangerous situations. He was always too bloody willing to take the bullet." I sigh. "At least he died fighting."

I can sense Gale getting ready to ask an awkward question. The kitchen just has an 'about to ask an awkward question' vibe. "What was your… relationship with Finnick? Ugh." He muttered. "That just sounds weird."

I wave for him to be quiet. "Finnick and I were like best friends. We could finish off each other's thoughts we were so in sync. During my games, you saw how I got the hatchet via a sponsor gift."

Gale nods. "I'd had no idea how the girl who had received a little less than no air time because she was in raging hysterics throughout all of the pre-Games spots had managed to amass enough sponsors to be sent a weapon."

"The kid Finnick was mentoring had managed to get himself killed in the bloodbath. The other kid from Four got blood poisoning from a cut and died the day after. They didn't show the note which came with the hatchet did they?" I ask.

"There was a note?" says Gale, confirming my suspicions.

"All it said was 'Go for it, little leaf.' That's when Finnick saved my life. Before the chariot ride, I'd been doing push ups in the chariot, waiting for the boy from my district, Johnny who didn't think to climb up a tree in a forested arena, when Finnick appeared. He proceeded to have a one sided conversation at me, wondering why a girl who seemed too terrified to walk in a straight line was working on her upper body strength. Apparently to him, it almost seemed as if it were all an act. He seemed a nice enough guy, so I gave him a wink and kept going. As he went back to the chariot Four had been assigned to impart mentorish wisdom, he ruffled my hair and said 'stay strong, little leaf.' Because as usual, our stylist had us dressed as trees. On my victory tour I saw him again in Four. That's when I actually got to thank him. According to him, he'd only won his games because someone had sent him a trident, and he thought he ought to pass on the favour. After that we stayed in touch, visited each other constantly and stuck together in the Capitol each Hunger Games. After various 'tragedies'" that word was flanked with inverted commas, "befell our relatives, we became each other's families. And contrary to Capitol gossip, we never had sex. That would just have been too weird."

Gale smiles and puts the squirrel in the oven.

"Why the curiosity?" I ask.

"The moment he was conscious, the first thing he asked was whether we'd gotten you out of the arena. When he found out you hadn't, he immediately started asking when we were getting you out of there. When he heard they had flooded your Block, he went absolutely ballistic, asking if they were actively trying to kill the one person who had managed to keep everyone alive in the arena. It was obvious that you were more than casual acquaintances."

Bless him. "Finnick figured out that I'd been waterboarded. He happened upon me hyperventilating as I watched a dripping tap and put two and two together. I asked him not to tell anyone in case they deemed me unfit for the mission. Not that it made any difference."

I can't help but worry that all this sharing will make things awkward. But surprisingly enough, we get along fine. Considering the fact that we're a couple of traumatised teenagers shoved together in some insane circumstances. With a not insignificant amount of sexual tension floating around.

Because, well, he's attractive, and a girl has needs. And he's definitely been looking.

Needless to say, I get no sleep that night. And unfortunately it's not because he's ripped off my clothes and is ravishing my body. It's the rain. I can hear it all around me, and I can't relax. And if I can't relax I can't very well go to sleep. I contemplate doing calligraphy, but even though my brain is awake, low sleep calligraphy generally just ends with me covered in ink splotches. So I pace. And do push ups. And pace some more. I sing quietly to myself. I write a letter to Annie. And then I write a letter to Peeta. And then I write a letter to Katniss. I pace.

I can hear Gale thrashing around upstairs in his room. Being the quiet little skulker that I am, I peek around the door. He's having a nightmare. From what I can ascertain from his words, he's trying to save Prim.

Which explains the guilt cloud he's been carrying around with him.

I go back to pacing. Eventually it's six in the morning and I decide I've waited around long enough. I set a pot of tea brewing and start frying up breakfast. Eggs, bacon and various other ex-animal products. Once everything's done, I walk back upstairs and nudge Gale until he wakes up.

It's a good thing I have lightning-fast reflexes, because he tries to stab me before he's entirely awake. I make a mental note to wake him up with a stick next time. He apologises for trying to kill me. I tell him to eat some breakfast… but only after I've taken a good long look at his bare chest. Only one word comes to mind to describe it, and that word is unf.

He turns around to pick up a shirt and I see that his back is covered with scarring. And really excellent muscles. He notices me staring and raises his eyebrows before putting on the shirt.

"I'm just admiring the view." I say, waving him downstairs.

He seems impressed by the breakfast I set out. He asks what I'm planning to do that day. I shrug and ask him the same question. He shrugs and answers "I'll probably go kill some critters."

It seems like a reasonable way for him to spend his time. I ask when we start or training. I need something to occupy myself with, something other than listening to the rain and wondering when the next patch of ceiling is about to cave in on top of me.

Gale scrutinises me for a moment. "If I leave you alone here you're just going to sit around wondering when the next patch of ceiling is going to collapse on you, aren't you." He asks.

I look at him as if to ask if that was even a question.

"I thought so." He mutters. "Did you get any sleep last night?" he enquires.

My facial expression doesn't change. Which just about answers his question.

"I'll be fine." I reassure him.

He looks unconvinced. I change the subject. "When so we start training and the like?"

He narrows his eyes for a moment because he clearly saw through my deflection. "Tomorrow." He pauses for a moment. "Do you want to come with?" he finally asks.

I burst out laughing. He looks confused and slightly concerned. "Do you really think that I'd be the pinnacle of stealth right about now?" I ask.

Gale relaxes slightly. "Not in the slightest. But it's a better option than me getting back here to find you huddling against a wall."

"That would never happen." I respond. "I'd be hiding under a table." I elucidate.

"Great." Says Gale with a not insignificant amount of sarcasm.

"Seriously." I continue. "I'm going to have to learn how to function without someone babysitting me all the time. If it gets too bad, I'll call Peeta. Hopefully it won't come to that."

He doesn't look reassured, but I can tell that he wants a bit of alone time, so he shrugs and picks up his breakfast stuff, carrying it over to the sink and washing it while I drink some tea. And maybe it's the fact that I'm strung out on no sleep, and maybe it's the fact that my heart's been going at twice its usual pace since I arrived in this district, and maybe I've just been starved of attractive man-candy. Whichever way, I can't help but notice the movement in his shoulder muscles through his shirt.

Ugh. I am disgusting. I need to talk to Annie so that she can verbally beat some sense into me. I also need to get myself clean. Having a ceiling collapse on you is not the best thing for personal hygiene.

Gale heads out for however long, leaving me alone in the house. So I assess the bathroom facilities.

There's a shower with an adjustable height head. This is good. I can keep the water away from my face. I'd be happier if there were a bath, but there isn't, so I'm going to have to work with the situation. And the sink is large enough for me to wash my hair in. Not that there's much of that for me to be concerned with. I smile cautiously. I can do this. I can get into a shower voluntarily. I can. I reach in and adjust the head so that it's well below my face. The last thing I need is for some surprise spray freaking me out.

I take a deep breath and turn on the water.

I flinch a little, but then tell myself to get real. This isn't my first shower, and it won't be my last. At least I don't have Annie yelling motivational insults at me through the door as was necessary a few times.

I take a couple of deep breaths, and then get on with it. I don't put my face anywhere near the water, but I'm getting over some of the crazy. Which is good.

And then once I've finished the shower I fill the sink with water and start washing my hair. It's probably not the best system in existence, but it's the only one I have the mental fortitude to work with at the moment. Which is a bit sad.

Once I'm done, I look at a clock. It's 8 am. Taking into account the fact that district 4 is an hour behind 2, I'm still pretty sure Annie's going to be awake.

And she is.

"I have a problem." I say the moment she picks up.

"Oh yes?" she replies. "I'm listening."


End file.
